26.7.14

BADFINGER - 'Baby Blue' & Other Matters

In the final episode of Breaking
Bad last year, Badfinger’s song ‘Baby Blue’ suddenly formed the backdrop to
a key moment in the story. What great taste, I thought, as it’s one of my
all-time favourite songs. In the weeks that followed it created a
welcome buzz around the group and their song, and I did a Facebook post about it which
attracted plenty of likes. I always thought there was a great deal of affection
out there for Badfinger, so I’ve revisited that post and will follow this up
with the three stories I wrote about the group for Melody Maker in the early seventies. Firstly, though, I need to set
the scene…

There is no more tragic
story in the history of rock than that of Badfinger, the Welsh group signed to
Apple; protégés of The Beatles, fleeced by an unscrupulous American
manager/conman and hung out to dry, bringing such povertyand depression that chief songwriter Pete Ham and bassist Tom
Evans took their own lives. These two wrote ‘Without You’, the massive hit,
first in 1972 for Harry Nilsson and then in 1994 for Maria Carey, and covered
by dozens of others, which should have guaranteed their financial security for
life.

‘Without You’ is a superb ballad but ‘Baby Blue’ is more
rhythmic, bristling with pop magic, and one of many songs Pete Ham wrote for
the love of his life, name of Dixie. Its cascading, arpeggio-style guitar
riffs, all garnished with just the right amount of distortion, fabulous vocal
harmonies and all-round melodic bounce grab me every time I hear it; a minor US
hit in 1972, no chart action at all in the UK, criminal really as it’s such a
wonderful record. A bit Beatlesy, especially the Harrison-like guitar solo and
flourish at the end, this was perhaps the monkey on Badfinger’s back, the
constant comparison with their patrons who, sadly, turned their backs on them
when civil war broke out in the Beatles’ camp in 1970. I interviewed Badfinger
for MM three times, the first time at
their communal house in Hampstead in 1971, and saw them at Carnegie Hall in
1972 on my second ever visit to New York; a great little band and nice guys
too. You can probably buy ‘Baby
Blue’ for less than a quid from iTunes nowadays and I can’t recommend it
enough, but beware – there’s a ‘best of’ album out there recorded solely by
Joey Molland, now the only surviving member of the original band, and session
men, which purports to be a Badfinger album and it’s well dodgy. Without
realising this, I bought it from HMV a few years ago and took it back the next
day demanding a refund from a surprised assistant to whom I explained that
despite what it said on the front it wasn’t a Badfinger album at all and ought
to be removed from sale. She didn’t argue but must have thought I was some kind
of nutcase, banging on as I was about some group she’d probably never heard of.

In 1997 Omnibus Press distributed Without You – The Tragic Story of Badfinger by Dan Matovina, the
only decent book on the band, which now goes for silly money on Amazon. Although
we didn’t publish it I was happy to help Dan editorially and I understand he’s
working on a new edition.

The Badfinger legacy ought to be about the brilliance of
their music but unfortunately the undercurrents of disharmony that plagued them
during their active life continue to this day. The estates of Pete Ham and Tom
Evans are at odds with Joey Molland who owns the trademark of the name
Badfinger. The issues between them are many and varied but in the main involve
Molland making misleading statements about the construction of songs that were
composed entirely by Ham and Evans, not least ‘Without You’, as well as
perpetuating the name Badfinger in groups that fail to live up the standard set
by the original which, of course, didn’t include Molland in its early days
anyway. For the record, drummer Mike Gibbins who had at times allied himself
with Molland, died in 2005. Managers Bill Collins and, especially, Stan Polley, who must share the blame for the misfortunes that befell the group, died in 2002
and 2009 respectively.

Fans are therefore advised to avoid the ‘official’ Badfinger site (just
as they’d be advised to avoid recent recordings attributed to the group) and visit
instead the Badfinger Library site - http://www.badfingerlibrary.com – and, on Facebook, the Badfinger/The Iveys page and the Badfinger (open
group) page